Plan: the United States Federal Government will substantially reduce its agricultural support by eliminating all domestic and export subsidies for cotton, as well as any other tariff or program directed toward cotton that has been determined by the WTO to be trade distorting. Affirmative speeches will clarify intent.

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Advantage 1. Poverty in Post-Colonial Feminism

1. Framework for the Advantage: Government Polices must approach poverty reduction from a feminist perspective. Moghadan 2005. THE ‘FEMINIZATION OF POVERTY’ AND WOMEN’S HUMAN RIGHTS Valentine M. Moghadam SHS/HRS/GED July 2005

The feminist approach to poverty focuses on the gender implications and social costs of poverty. They include the growing involvement of women and children in the informal economy; differential treatment of girls and boys in households; pressure to get girls married off quickly; higher school drop-out rates for girls; less control over fertility; and recourse to prostitution. Studies on female poverty have given rise to policy recommendations that there be poverty-alleviation or employment-generation programs designed specifically for women, or that households maintained by women alone be targeted for social programs. Similarly, the Beijing Platform for Action calls on governments to “Formulate and implement, when necessary, specific economic, social, agricultural and related policies in support of female-headed households;” (United Nations, 1995, p. 41). It also calls on governments to analyse, from a gender perspective, policies and programs -- including those related to macroeconomic stability, structural adjustment, external debt problems, taxation, investments, employment, markets and all relevant sectors of the economy -- with respect to their impact on poverty; on inequality and particularly on women; assess their impact on family well-being and conditions and adjust them, as appropriate, to promote more equitable distribution of productive assets, wealth, opportunities, income and services; (United Nations, 1996, p. 40).

2. Women’s poverty is the underlying cause of overpopulation, environmental degradation, refugee flows and humanitarian crises. Buvinic 1998 { Women in Poverty:A New Global Underclass Mayra Buvinic is Chief of the Social Development Division of the Sustainable Development Department. http://www.onlinewomeninpolitics.org/beijing12/womeninpoverty.pdf ]

This feminization of poverty should be considered a legitimate foreign policyconcern. Because women are increasingly economic actors and heads of households aswell as mothers, their poverty slows global economic growth. Moreover, in poorcountries, their disadvantage feeds a destructive spiral of poverty, populationgrowth, and environmental degradation. In a world of blurring borders, women’s povertycreates enclaves of want in the midst of wealth and puts rising pressures on thedeveloped world, whether by fueling costly humanitarian crises or by unleashing— forthe first time— waves of females who migrate without spouses to seek work inricher countries.

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3. Poverty is equivalent to an ongoing, systemic nuclear war against the poor – it is responsible for a cycle of violence that kills hundreds of millions of peopleAbu-Jamal 1998 [Mumia, award-winning Pennsylvania journalist, A quite and deadly violence. http://www.flashpoints.net/mQuietDeadlyViolence.html]

[E]very fifteen years, on the average, as many people die because of relative poverty as would be killed in a nuclear war that caused 232 million deaths; and every single year, two to three times as many people die from poverty throughout the world as were killed by the Nazi genocide of the Jews over a six-year period. This is, in effect, the equivalent of an ongoing, unending, in fact accelerating, thermonuclear war, or genocide on the weak and poor every year of every decade, throughout the world. [Gilligan, p. 196]

4. Solvency. Elimination U.S. cotton subsidies solves for millions of women living in poverty in Pakistan. Our solvency is specific because of Pakistan’s geographic location to China and India.

Little a. Only Pakistan is positioned to have a huge wealth increase from cotton exports to India and China. Burki 2004 [Intricacies of cotton politics by Shahid Javed Burki 2004 [http://www.dawn.com/2004/05/06/op.htm Shahid Javed Burki is former Vice-President,

World Bank and former Finance Minister of Pakistan)]

Pakistan is the only large exporter of cotton that sits right next to the two countries that, on account of their size and the rapid increase in the purchasing power of their large populations, are seeing significant increases in their domestic demand for cotton and cotton products. Distance matters for the export of a bulky item such as cotton. Pakistan's proximity to both China and India should help it enormously to exploit its geographical advantage. If the current thawing of relations with India results in increasing trade between the two countries, cotton will figure in an important way in this expansion.

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Little b. Raising cotton prices will decrease in poverty in Pakistan. Orden 2006 [The Impact of Global Cotton Markets on Rural Povertyin Pakistan, David Orden, Abdul Salam, Reno Dewina, Hina Nazli, and Nicholas MinotThe authors are, respectively, Senior Research Fellow (d.orden@cgiar.org), in the Markets, Trade and Institutions Division, International Food Policy Research Institute (MTID/IFPRI), Washington, D.C.; former chairman (drabdulsalam@email.com) of the Agricultural Prices Commission now associated with Innovated Development Strategies (IDS) Ltd., Islamabad; Senior Research Assistant (r.dewina@cgiar.org), MTID/IFPRI; Senior Research Associate hinanazli@idspak.com), IDS; Senior Research Fellow (n.minot@cgiar.org), MTID/IFPRI.]

Again, the depth and severity of poverty also fall. Overall, cotton prices have quite a significant effect on rural poverty among cotton producing households. When farmers respond to a price increase by expanding cotton production, the estimated reductions in poverty are similar even though the supply response increases their average household incomes somewhat more. At the national level, a 20% increase in cotton prices causes poverty among all cotton-producing households to fall from 40% to 28%. The study estimates that this is a reduction of poverty in Pakistan by 1.939 million people.

Little c. Eliminating U.S. subsidies would bring millions of Pakistan’s poorest women out of poverty. Burki 2004 [Intricacies of cotton politics by Shahid Javed Burki 2004 [http://www.dawn.com/2004/05/06/op.htm Shahid Javed Burki is former Vice-President,

World Bank and former Finance Minister of Pakistan)]

This would be of enormous help to a major producer and exporter of cotton such as Pakistan. A 30 per cent increase in the price of traded lint cotton could add one per cent to Pakistan's GDP, improve average agricultural incomes, particularly for those engaged in caring for the crop and harvesting it. My rough guess is that if the US and Europe give up subsidizing their farmers, some two million peasants in Pakistan could climb out of poverty. A large number of them would be women.

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Advantage 2. Pakistan Internal Stability

1. Pakistan’s economy is crashing in the status quo. Martin Hutchinson August 19, 2008 [Pakistan must now attend to its economy, http://www.livemint.com/2008/08/19230744/Pakistan-must-now-attend-to-it.html?h=B]

Since last year, though, Pakistan’s economy has deteriorated. Inflation, around 8% a year ago, is now 24%, the highest in Pakistan’s history. The stock market is down 33% since April and Pakistan’s international credit spreads have widened from 4.1% to 7.4%. Economic growth is slowing sharply, while the balance of payments deficit in the fiscal year to June was 9% of gross domestic product, double the previous year’s shortfall.

In an article literally titled, ‘Pakistan on the brink of massive economic crisis’ Hassan in July 21 2008 issue of the Pakistan Daily Times writes [http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008%5C07%5C22%5Cstory_22-7-2008_pg7_13] writes:

WASHINGTON: The Pakistani economy today faces the looming risk of a full-fledged balance of payments crisis, domestic and external fiscal imbalances that have reached alarming proportions and show no signs of self-correction or correction through policy action, according to an economic expert.

Dr Meekal Aziz Ahmed, who served senior advisor to the IMF executive director dealing with the region and as senior economist with the Pakistan Planning Commission, writes in a brief review of Pakistan’s economic plight that inflation has accelerated to levels never seen before in the country’s history and it is set to rise further, devastating the fixed income groups and the poor. There has been “criminal negligence” behind the power crisis, which has led to untold losses in domestic production and exports. Added to these disasters the country has a food crisis, an oil crisis, an emerging water crisis, not to mention a political crisis. There is agreement among economists, he notes, that Pakistan’s short-term prospects are grim. With economic policies likely to remain broadly unchanged, the economy will continue to slide downward until the country runs out of its foreign exchange reserves. At the point of reserve exhaustion, Pakistan will not be able to pay for its imports or meet its debt service obligations. The country, in short, will be bankrupt, Dr Ahmed predicts.

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2. Economic crisis in Pakistan triggers multiple scenarios for nuclear conflict with India and nuclear terrorism. Kerr 2008: [Paul Kerr and Mary Beth Nikitin Analysts in Nonproliferation Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division, Congressional Research Service Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons: Proliferation and Security Issues]

Current instability in Pakistan has called the extent and durability of thesereforms into question. Some observers fear radical takeover of a government thatpossesses a nuclear bomb, or proliferation by radical sympathizers within Pakistan’snuclear complex in case of a breakdown of controls.

Scenario a. Nuclear terrorism.

1. Destabilized Pakistan could result in terrorist acquisition of nuclear weapons. Graham Allison, 2005 [ Prof. of International Security Studies. http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/05/10/int05041.html]

Destabilization of Pakistan would be a huge security problem. If Musharraf were assassinated then I would say the most likely successor government – based on the people whom I talked to – would likely be some other general. But you could also see an unraveling of Pakistan that could make some of the nuclear weapons come loose or be sold to terrorists groups. It's entirely possible that a Taliban style government or bin Laden sympathizers could even take power. We could have a bin Laden-like state, God forbid. So I would say Pakistan is a very dangerous place.

2. A single terrorist attack would crash the global economy over night with a secondary wave of deaths world wide from poverty. Sokolski 2008[ PAKISTAN’S NUCLEAR FUTURE: WORRIES BEYOND WAR Henry D. Sokolski 2008 [http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/pub832.pdf]

Beyond contamination, Graham Allison cited in his article that researchers at RAND, a U.S. Governmentfunded think-tank, estimate that a nuclear explosionat the port of Long Beach in California would cause immediate indirect costs worldwide of more than $3 trillion, and that shutting down all U.S. ports wouldcut world trade by 10 percent.14 United Nations (UN) Secretary General Kofi Annansaid: Perhaps the thing that it is most vital is to deny terrorists access to nuclear materials. Nuclear terrorism is still often treated as science fiction. I wish it were. But,unfortunately, we live in a world of excess hazardous materials and abundant technological know-how, in which some terrorists clearly state their intention to inflict catastrophic casualties. Were such an attack to occur, it would not only cause widespread death and destruction, but would stagger the world economy and thrust tens of millions of people into dire poverty. Given what we know of the relationship between poverty and infant mortality, any nuclear terrorist attack would have a second death toll throughout the developing world.

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Scenario B. Indo-Pak nuclear war.1. Instability could trigger a radical takeover of Pakistan, triggering a war with India. Sokolski 2008[ PAKISTAN’S NUCLEAR FUTURE: WORRIES BEYOND WAR Henry D. Sokolski 2008 [http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/pub832.pdf]

What might happen if the current Pakistani government is takenover by radicalized political forces sympathetic to the Taliban? Such a government, they fear, might share Pakistan’s nuclear weapons materials and know-how with others, including terrorist organizations. Then there is the possibility that a more radical government might pick a war again with India.

2. War between Pakistan and India could easily escalate to a regional nuclear war, killing millions. Edwards 2002 [“Three million would die in a ‘limited’ nuclear war over Kashmir, New Scientist, May 24, 2002.]

"It is imperative that the two countries not go to war - however limited in scale. Even the most local conflicts have the potential to escalate into a full-scale war, possibly nuclear," Ramana told New Scientist.

The US and Asian nuclear researchers investigated the impact of 10 explosions similar to that detonated by the US over the Japanese city of Hiroshima in 1945. They assume that five 15-kilotonne bombs explode 600 metres above Bangalore, Bombay, Calcutta, Madras and New Delhi in India, while another five explode above Faisalabad, Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi in Pakistan.

They conclude that hundreds of thousands of people would be killed or badly injured in every city, amounting to 2.6 million in India and 1.8 million in Pakistan. The prospect is credible and devastating, warns M V Ramana one of the researchers from Princeton University, New Jersey and an expert on nuclear policy in India.

3. Even a small regional nuclear exchange would devastate the planet. Statement of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, December 11, 2006 [Regional nuclear war could devastate global climate; http://www.physorg.com/news85031063.html]:

Even a small-scale, regional nuclear war could produce as many direct fatalities as all of World War II and disrupt the global climate for a decade or more, with environmental effects that could be devastating for everyone on Earth, university researchers have found.

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Next Point is Solvency.

1. Low Cotton prices are the primary reason for Pakistan’s economic crisis.

Khan, March 2008 [Cotton crisis and rural poverty By Dr Akhtar Hasan Khan March 2008 http://www.dawn.com/2008/03/03/ebr4.htm]

Balance of trade and current account balance have deteriorated sharply during the last two years and reached an unsustainable level. By significantly increasing import of raw cotton and edible oil and stagnant export of textiles, the fall in cotton output has contributed greatly to these imbalances in trade and current account. The cotton crisis is not felt by the common man as the wheat crisis but its significance for the economy is far-reaching, adversely effecting millions who are involved in the cotton chain from production to export.

2. Cotton production literally drives the Pakistani economy, comprising of almost 70% of Pakistan foreign exchange.

Siegmann, 2007 [Poverty despite productivity: Part I Karin Astrid Siegmann works as a

Research Fellow at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), Islamabad. The News

on Sunday, Rawalpindi/Islamabad July 29, 2007 By Karin Astrid Siegmann, Sustainable

Development Policy Institute,

http://www.sdpi.org/SDPI_in_the_press/articles_2007/articles_july_07.html]

Pakistan's economic engine is fuelled by cotton, yet the people in the cotton sector belong to the poorest segments of society Cotton is grown on more than three million hectares (ha) in Pakistan, that is about one sixth of the total cultivated area. Annual production surpassed 2.4 million tonnes in the 2004/05 harvest, Pakistan's highest ever cotton production. It made the country the fourth largest producer world--wide. Directly, the 'white gold' accounts for a tenth of the value added in agriculture. Through its use in the textile and clothing industry, Pakistan's industrial backbone, it is indirectly responsible for another tenth of the GDP and about two thirds of total merchandise exports. Pakistan's productivity fares well in international comparison (Table 1). Although, for example, Pakistani cotton is sown on about a third of the acreage that is covered by Indian cotton fields, its harvest is not substantially less.

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2. Increased cotton sales will boost the entire Pakistani economy.

Orden 2006 [The Impact of Global Cotton Markets on Rural Povertyin Pakistan, David Orden, Abdul Salam, Reno Dewina, Hina Nazli, and Nicholas MinotThe authors are, respectively, Senior Research Fellow (d.orden@cgiar.org), in the Markets, Trade and Institutions Division, International Food Policy Research Institute (MTID/IFPRI), Washington, D.C.; former chairman (drabdulsalam@email.com) of the Agricultural Prices Commission now associated with Innovated Development Strategies (IDS) Ltd., Islamabad; Senior Research Assistant (r.dewina@cgiar.org), MTID/IFPRI; Senior Research Associate hinanazli@idspak.com), IDS; Senior Research Fellow (n.minot@cgiar.org), MTID/IFPRI.]

Pakistan ranks fourth among the world’s cotton-producing countries. Cotton isPakistan’s largest cash crop and second only to wheat in terms of area sown. On average, the area under cotton has hovered around 3 million ha with nearly 80% of area and production coming from Punjab and 20% from Sindh. Cotton’s share in the value-added from major crops comes to 24% (GoP 2004). The textiles industry, which is Pakistan’s largest industry and a major source of employment in manufacturing depends on domestic cotton production for its supply of raw material. The cotton sector’s performance is crucial for not only the growth and development of agriculture and success of rural poverty alleviation efforts but also for robust growth of the overall economy. Cotton and textiles account for 65% of the country’s foreign exchange earnings. Its byproduct helps reduce Pakistan’s dependence on imports of edible oils and provides feed for livestock and dairy animals. The textile industry has grown significantly in recent years, expanding from 247 mills in 1990/91 to 361 in 2003/04 (GoP 2004). Cotton harvesting is a labor-intensive activity that is an important seasonal source of employment for rural women and children, providing incremental income to rural farm and nonfarm households.

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3. Independently, elimination of U.S. cotton subsidies can reduce terrorism by building confidence and lives of Pakistanis and reducing U.S. Imperialism. Menotti, 2008 [The 9/11 Report and World Trade Talks: Walking the Walk in WTO By Victor MenottiInternational Forum on Globalization, http://www.ifg.org/analysis/wto/WTOWalk.html}

Many poor countries see the US as an imperial power flouting world trade rules, even though American corporations mainly wrote them. Perhaps the best known example is US export subsidies for cotton, a crop that is key to the economies of nations critical to countering terrorism, such as Egypt, Turkey, and Pakistan. A recent WTO ruling reconfirmed the illegality of US cotton subsidies because they deflate world cotton prices and artificially reduce foreign farmers' incomes. US subsidies for cotton increased from over $30 million to almost $3 billion between 1996 ‚ 2001, with less than 10 percent America's cotton farmers receiving almost 80 percent of the $10 billion in subsidies.

In Pakistan, the country where Osama bin Laden is believed to be hiding and whose capture depends on Pakistan's willingness to cooperate with the US, 67 percent of export earnings are based on cotton. Together with a large block of developing nations, they are insisting that the US reduce its export subsidies. But the current US position makes no clear commitment to reducing them. In fact, the US is now trying to change rules to allow the expansion of export subsidies. We will never win the hearts and minds of people with empty stomachs and open ears that hear us say only, "do as we say, not as we do."

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